


Flowers and Cards

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-10-29 17:59:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: Alice Jones works at the ‘Game of Thorns’ flower shop. Whenever she comes across a lackluster card she puts her magic to work and gives the receipient a far more romantic love letter than they could have ever hoped for. Robyn Locksley has a girlfriend who wouldn’t know romance if it slapped her in the face so when Robyn receives flowers and a poem she KNOWS her significant other couldn’t have written, Robyn is determined to find out who her mystery poet is...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to JustAnOutlawFic on twitter for the story idea. Also I know it’s past Valentine’s Day and this is actually two chapters so it’s actually not even finished yet but I really hope you guys still like it.

_ “To the Snow White to my Prince Charming; I will always find you. Your true love, David.” _

Could be longer but it was full of inside compliments that were clearly meaningful to the both of them. That one could stay.

“ _ To the woman who saw the man behind the beast; you chased away all the darkness from my life, and I owe more to you than I can ever say. Affectionately and forever yours, Robert Weaver.” _

That was a good one too, although Gold already knew it would be changed if it wasn’t up to her standards.

_ “To my beautiful Ruby; There’s no place like home, especially when you’re there with me. Your Kansas girl, Dorothy. (Toto said to sign his name on the card.) _

Aww! That one was rather adorable! There was even a little dog paw print as a way for their pet to ‘sign’ the card.

“ _ To my Queen; I will be forever grateful that you gave love and happiness a second chance. You are, now and forever, the most stunning woman I know, and I am honored to be called yours. Your soulmate, Robin.” _

That one nearly brought a tear to her eye. This one was definitely good enough to stay.

Alice grinned at the computer screen in front of her as she clicked the ‘print’ button. She was getting a lot of good ones this year, hardly any duds, a rather drastic change from last year. 

She only, so far, needed to make about a hundred changes to lackluster notes which considering they were getting hundreds of orders a week due to how close it was to Valentine’s Day it was quite low truthfully.

Smiling, Alice clicked on the next order and any joy she felt at reading the last three cards turned to ash in her mouth.

_ “To Astrid. Happy Valentines Day. Love, Leroy.” _

No no, that would never do. This Leroy didn’t seem to put any thought into this note at all. Granted it wasn’t all that surprising considering he only ordered a basic dozen roses but no one should suffer a careless message to go along with her flowers.

So it was with a tired sigh as she pulled up the internet browser, already set to her Facebook, and searched for ‘Astrid’, glad that even in a large city like Seattle it wasn’t a fairly common name like say Britney or Nancy.

She found her in moments and Alice began scrolling through her photos and posts to see her likes, her interests, what made her happy, what brought her joy.

What Astrid liked to do with the person she loved…

Sailing, Alice realized almost as soon as she began looking at Astrid’s photos. She and Leroy love sailing. 

Almost every photo of the two of them were smiling and happy on a boat, drinking beers on a boat, fishing on a boat, kissing one another and holding each other on a boat, walking hand in hand along a crowded dock...

Alice grinned as she clicked back to the page where she was just supposed to print out what the customer ordered on the card and not alter it unless there was an obvious typo. 

She had already been scolded once by her boss Mo French for this but everyone deserved something special on Valentines Day. The words on the card was half the gift; words to express how they made someone feel, full of poetry and grand declarations of love and romance…

Alice couldn’t just let someone get a simple three word message! 

So, when she realized the edit wouldn’t show up on the final receipt so long as she printed it before she changed the wording, Alice took to rewording their messages a bit.

...Okay she reworded them a lot, but these women deserve something special! These women deserve beautiful poetry, which Alice was more than happy to give them. 

So, after printing out the receipt so her boss wouldn’t know, she leaned forward on her hands and let her mind wonder for a bit, thinking of sailboats and seawater and making love on the shore and soft moonlight reflecting off a clear calm sea and sunrises on a neverending blue horizon…

Then she began typing. The words came faster and faster, pouring out until she had about five hundred words written, all jumbled together and lacking sense and structure. 

Alice began to move the words around, deleted some, wrote some more, deleted half of those, copy and paste a word here, a new paragraph there, change this word so it rhymes with this one until she decided to shift a single word of text around so it no longer made sense...

That was how she wrote. That was how she lived, truthfully; everything was all jumbled and confuzzled inside her brain and every day she had to take her pills so she could rearrange the thoughts and words inside her head until they finally were in the right order, just like her poetry.

Finally she looked at the end result and grinned. It was perfect. It was beautiful and poetic and romantic and best of all; it was something Astrid would love and knew that Leroy had put his whole heart and soul into writing.

“ _ How gently darkness lays itself upon the restless sea, _ _   
_ _ While breezes scented cool and clean, are blowing wild and free, _

_ When moonlight's blush fades gradually and hides its ash white face, _ _   
_ _ A thousand candles dimly lit, now frame the soft embrace. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ All through the night with spirits bright as shameless dreams unfold, _ _   
_ __ 'till sunlight makes the darkness break to show the story told

_ Tempest waters calm and smooth, stillness now the sea, _

_ Sky and water bound in love-- as lovers, you and me.  _

_ Forever yours, Leroy.” _

Alice grinned as she printed out the new poem on the card. Perfect. Astrid would definitely think that her boyfriend put his whole heart and soul into the card (which Alice did with every single poem she wrote.)

The blonde clicked through a few more cards without making any edits, her joy returning as she read the romantic notes and poems that boyfriends and husbands and fiancées wrote their significant others, father’s wrote to their daughters, friends wrote to friends…

That was the best part of the working at the Game of Thorns flower shop; being surrounded by love and romance and beauty and kindness… it was everything Alice wanted in her own life but had yet to experience.

On the very day she was born Alice was abandoned by her mother and her father had raised her until he went to prison when she was twelve. After that she was on her own, going from foster home to foster home being thought of as nothing more than a paycheck. Then when she was 16 she woke in the dead of night to find her foster father standing in the doorway staring at her and stroking himself. The next morning Alice put on her jacket, grabbed her faded green backpack and headed out into the harshness of the Windy City.

She survived by the skin of her teeth; begging, stealing, breaking into warm places to sleep, finally making her permanent ‘home’ an old shipping container out by an abandoned shipping yard. It was warm enough during the winter, cool enough in the summer, it even had an outlet that still worked so she even had some electricity.

One day Alice saw a gang member shoot a twelve year old girl whose only crime had been riding her bike down the same sidewalk where there had been a drive by. She knew the streets, she knew what could happen if she told the cops what she saw, she knew she would have been rewarded if she kept silent but the face of that little girl, staring up at the heavens with no light in her eyes, haunted her nightmares for days so she went to the cops and told them what she saw.

Which was how Alice met Detective Weaver and in turn became his informant. She would give him information about things she saw on the street, he would give her food and water, extra blankets during the winter, an actual bed rather than just a sleeping bag inside her shipping container… Then one day Weaver told her that he didn’t want her to be an informant anymore; he wanted her to work at his father in laws flower shop and start to make a life for herself, move into an apartment, find her true love and get married… 

Which is exactly what she had done. The apartment and job part anyway, the finding true love part was proving impossibly hard. But Alice had hope that one day her princess would come, it was just a matter of waiting.

And she would spend the time waiting by making others feel good and making others believe their loved ones had poured their heart and souls into their Valentine’s Day gift.

Alice clicked ‘print’ on a note full of love, grinning all the while, but when she clicked the button that took her to the next order any happiness had been drained from her heart when she read the note that would go along with six pink carnations, the cheapest arrangement they offered.

_ “2 Robyn. Happy vday. Luv Melody.” _

...What kinda cheap crappy message was THAT? This girl, this Robyn, she would be heartbroken and devastated and know that whoever this Melody character was didn’t really care about her. Not only had she ordered such cheap cruddy flowers but hadn’t even spare a half a moment’s thought for the card! What kind of jerk does that?!

Praying with all her heart that Melody and Robyn were just barely friends Alice quickly searched for Robyn on her face book and, as luck would have it, she found one with a single shared connection with a friend of hers Henry Mills. She was his cousin actually and this Robyn Locksley was indeed dating a woman named Melody Gale.

Robyn was also, without question, the most beautiful woman Alice had ever seen.

Stunning in every way.

She was tall with an athletic body and long dark blonde hair that she seemed to favor putting in a single side braid and possessed two pale green eyes that even just looking at a photo of them Alice could feel herself becoming lost in.

Alice clicked through several more photos and saw that her smile could be warm and soft or smug and full of slyness and the more she looked the more the curly hair poet wondered what exactly Robyn could do with those smug lips.

There was also quite a number of photos of her standing behind a soup kitchen line, ladle in hand smiling and standing side by side with a brown eyed woman and a man who she looked damn near identical to apart from the fact he had blue eyes rather than green and saw her at some black tie event with an attractive red headed woman who shared her pale emerald eyes.

Then there was all the photos with this girl that her status did confirm she was in a relationship, this Melody Seawater; a tall strikingly gorgeous woman with long black hair and dark green eyes who had the kind of body you were sure only existed in magazines. The more Alice looked through the photos, the more her heart ached for this Robyn woman.

Every photo of the two of them, Robyn was beaming or looking at her girlfriend with affection or wanting to be as close to her as possible. She was looking at her girlfriend the way Alice had always dreamed of having someone look at her like, with more love in their eyes than Alice knew what to do with. Melody, meanwhile, was far too busy looking at the camera and trying to perfect that perfect pouty lip or catch that perfect natural lighting… 

There was also quite a few photos of Robyn standing besides Melody cheering and beaming with pride as the black haired woman dressed in a racing swimsuit held up her gold medal. But, Alice realized with a frown, Robyn had just as many of not more so photos of herself in various archery tournaments, standing there pride and grinning and holding up her medals and her bow but Melody was nowhere to be found and more often than not she was standing side by side with that same blue eyed man from earlier, Alice guessed her father, who was holding up his own medals.

No. No, this isn't right. Robyn deserved better then not only that sad sorry excuse for a Valentine’s Day gift but a better class of girlfriend overall. Alice never even met this girl before but she could tell she was kind and gentle and strong and decent and worthy of a far better class of love then what Melody was giving her.

Maybe Alice should just let this card go as is, maybe then Robyn would realize she was deserving of something far better then what Melody was willing to give. But no; she would never do that. She could never do that to someone, especially to someone as deserving as this Robyn Locksley.

Blinking away the tears Alice turned back to the task at hand and opened up a new word document and began to write as feverishly as she could. Her fingers sailed across the keys as quick as you’d like, a thousand words pouring out of her soul and heart. She cut this word, added this one, moved this sonnet, cut half of that paragraph, wrote a hundred more words… on and on it went until she was left with a poem Alice felt was worthy of the archer on her screen.

 

_ “I made my life an arrow,  _

_ The tip a deadly sharpened point,  _

_ So people never came so close,  _

_ That I may disappoint,  _

_ I’d sit and watch in silence,  _

_ As the world would pass me by,  _

_ Wondering how far I’d fall,  _

_ If I ever tried to fly,  _

 

_ You watched me with such interest,  _

_ Like it was me you tried to find,  _

_ As though you knew all of my secrets,  _

_ And the thoughts within my mind,  _

_ You looked like all the others,  _

_ But what I did not know;  _

_ Was while I’d made myself an arrow,  _

_ You had made yourself a bow,  _

 

_ And apart we’d both been useless,  _

_ But we’d finally worked out why;  _

_ Since you need someone to pull you back, _

_ If you ever want to fly,  _

_ So you aimed me with precision,  _

_ And I flew straight from the start,  _

_ Until I landed with a solid thud,  _

_ On the target of your heart. _

 

_ All my love, Melody.” _

 

As Alice read this poem she smiled softly. This was hers, this was Robyn’s poem, she knew it was, she knew this would be what made Robyn smile and feel her heart full with love.

She would think it was beautiful. She would think it was written by someone who loved her, who knew her, who respected her.

She would think Melody wrote it…

Printing out the card Alice clicked on the next order and her entire face fell as she read the card that went with the order.

_ “2 Alexandra. Happy vday. Luv Melody. (Don’t read this in front of R.) _

Alice swallowed hard as she stared at the order. There wasn’t even a thirty second time difference from when Melody put in one order and the other…

Swallowing hard, Alice just shook her head and hit ‘print.’ 

Melody didn’t get to be a poet to two women…

 

**More to come I promise! Please Review!**

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said only one more chapter but I definitely thinks this fic warrants three but I promise it’ll get upgraded quickly.

“I got a whiskey sour, three kamakaze shots, a cosmo and a dry martini for table eight.”

Robyn nodded as she began getting out the alcohol, mixes and juice for the order that Ruby Lucas placed.

“God I hate working on Valentines Day,” Ruby sighed as she leaned against the bar and looked out over the patrons all visiting ‘The Rabbit Hole’, the bar she and Robyn worked at, the former as a server the latter as a bartender. 

It was still fairly early on in the day, just after three a clock, which meant it was still relatively slow, especially for a holiday. Later on though the bar would be packed to capacity, every seat would be taken and every table would be full of empty bottles and glasses.

Not to mention, of course, all the men buying women they didn’t know drinks, the women either accepting the mating call of the North American male or rejecting them and the couples who would so cuddled up and snuggled close together they might as well have been one person. There was nothing sexual about it, not really, but one would wrap an arm around the waist, sit in another’s lap, a sweet tender kiss to the cheek, the forehead, the shoulder...

Robyn used to think it was cute, the way couples would hold each other close, especially on a day like today, back when she thought she could have that with the person she loved. But then she had discovered her girlfriend wasn’t exactly the PDA type much less one for intimate snuggling. 

“Half the drinks ordered are going to other tables and it’s up to me to decipher which one is the ‘cute one with the big tits’,” Ruby groaned as she ran her hands over her face, already over this particular holiday.

Robyn chuckled as she began mixing the drinks for their customers in no big hurry, not like she would be later on at least. “Yeah but the guys give you big tips to deliver them.”

“True. Speaking of buying drinks for cute women with big tits…” Ruby leaned over the bar and nodded towards one of the only full tables full of men who were too good looking to be called ugly but too average looking to be called hot. “The brown haired guy at table six wants to buy you a shot.”

Robyn rolled her eyes as she poured the drinks into their individual glasses. “Did you tell them they have the wrong equipment for me to be interested?”

“I could have,” Ruby mused. “But they gave me $10 to let you know.”

Another roll of Robyn’s yes before she looked up from what she was doing and easily found the man Ruby had told her about. She just raised a brow at the man who puckered his lips at her with a suggestive eyebrow to match and grabbed the tiny little rainbow flag she kept beneath the counter just for this occasion and held it up, snickering as she watched his face fall in disappointment.

“You could have left the guy with a little dignity intact,” said Ruby as she set the drinks on her small serving tray. “Or at least let him buy you a few free drinks.”

“I’m already in one crappy relationship,” she said dryly, “I don’t need to be giving guys false hope for another.”

Ruby flinched as if she had been slapped. “Things not going well in paradise?”

“I don’t know,” Robyn signed. “She acts like she’s bored when she’s with me, like I’m some big burden to be around, half the time we’re out she's on her phone… do you know that Melody got me for my birthday?” When Ruby shook her head Robyn answered with a rather bitter, “a text saying ‘hap bday luv ya Rob’ two days late, KNOWING I hate that nickname because of how many people call my dad that. Like I’m not looking for her to give me the Mona Lisa but… I want romance in my life.”

Robyn’s eyes drifted to the bar, picking at a long scratch ingrained in the wood as she voiced her wants to her friend and coworker.

“I want adventures,” said Robyn almost pleading, as if Ruby could pull out a woman like that from her front pocket. “I want laughs and smiles and to know what it feels like when a girl actually loves me and gets me much less acts like they like me. I want her to be as excited when she sees me as I am when I see her. Plus? I think she’s cheating on me.”

“Wait, you think the fish is cheating on you?” asked Ruby with wide brown eyes, using the nickname she knew Melody didn’t particular like but to be fair Ruby didn’t particularly like Melody. But in turn Robyn and Ruby’s girlfriend Dorothy hated one another as well, something to do with Robyn’s mother, a lawyer, charging Dorothy with stealing a ruby encrusted necklace. “Do you know for sure?”

Robyn shrugged as she wiped down the spilled drops of liquor from the deeply stained bartop. “I mean I don’t have videotape but she’s just been kinda skittish lately. Plus the other day she told me she was sick and couldn’t go to my archery tournament.”

“I thought you said she never goes?”

“She doesn’t,” Robyn admitted with a stab of pain in her chest. 

Every swim meet Melody had Robyn was sitting in the front row, the smell of chlorine and pool water as known to her as the smell of a fletcher resting up against her cheek. She would cheer on her girlfriend, celebrate her wins, tell her how proud she was when she took first place, rubbed her legs after a particularly hard practice…

Robyn could count the times Melody would when show up to one of her archery tournaments and would be on the phone all the while.

“That’s not what’s suspicious,” she added, ignoring the sympathetic frown her friend gave her. “Afterwards rather than go out to dinner with my dad and stepmom like I normally do I went back to Melody’s to bring her some soup and take care of her and her car wasn’t in the driveway. I figured she must have gone out for some soup or medicine or something so I went home and I… saw her car. In Alex’s driveway,” she admitted. 

“I never trusted Alex,” Ruby mused. “What kinda asshole wears glass slipper to a graduation ceremony?”

“But when I asked her what she did that night,” Robyn continued. “She just said she stayed home.”

Ruby’s face fell. “Oh sweetie…” She reached out and grabbed hold of her hand. “I’m so sorry…”

She blinked her tears away, shrugging her pain and doubt away. “We don’t know for sure,” Robyn said, trying to assure herself as much as Ruby. “She could have just wanted some comfort and Alex couldn’t come over so she went over there.”

Ruby raised a brow but before she could blow a hole in the already sinking ship a man walked into the bar with two bouquets of flowers in each hand. One of them were a large bouquet of red, blue and white roses all beautifully selected and arranged and the other were just six simple pink carnations.

“I got a delivery for a Ruby Lucas and Robyn Locksley,” the delivery man announced to the bar. 

“Guess which one is yours,” Robyn muttered rather dryly before she raised her voice to let the delivery man know he could find the two recipients right at the bar.

“Ruby?” he asked when he approached the two women.

“That’s me.”

He handed the waitress the roses and then in turn handed Robyn the carnations, bid then a happy Valentine's Day and headed back out to his truck; a large white van with ‘Game of Thorns’ written on the side.

“ _ To my beautiful Ruby; There’s no place like home, especially when you’re there with me,”  _ Ruby read aloud from the card, a her face glowing with love. “ _ Your Kansas girl, Dorothy. (Toto said to sign his name on the card.) _ ...That is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life, oh my god, I love that woman, she’s getting the good pussy tonight.”

Despite everything, Robyn smiled at her friend, reaching out and rubbing her arm. “I’m glad you have someone that makes you happy, Ruby. You deserve it.”

“So do you.” Ruby tucked the card into her breast pocket for safe keeping. “But come on, what's yours say?”

Robyn shook her head as she set the flowers to the side. “Probably the cost of the flowers so I can pay her back,” she said with a laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I mean the card is pretty big, it looks like there’s a lot of writing on it,” Ruby offered with a shrug.

Rolling her emerald eyes and, mainly to shut her up and prove her wrong, she grabbed hold of the card and began to read in a rather exasperated tone.

_ “I made my life an arrow, _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The tip a deadly sharpened point, _ _   
_ _   
_ _ So people never came so close, _ _   
_ _   
_ __ That I may disappoint….”

Robyn’s face fell, going from total boredom to confusion as she read the rest of the poem not outloud but to herself, getting more and more confounded the longer it went on.

“What?” asked Ruby when Robyn’s jaw dropped. “Robyn what is it? Oh my god, did she break up with you via flower?” 

Robyn looked up front the card, her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Did you send me the flowers?”

“No. I mean I like you as a friend but not enough to leave my farm girl for you. Why what’s up? Are the flowers not from Melody?”

“According to the note they are but something's off.”

“What do you mean?”

Robyn said nothing and instead just handed the note to Ruby. “That sound like something she’d write?”

The waitress read over the card, her eyes going wide her hand going over her heart. “Oh my God, Robyn! This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever read!” 

“Exactly, that’s the problem.” Robyn snatched the card back and reread her love note, the poetry sending butterflies fluttering to and fro in her stomach. “Those are not Melody’s words. She couldn’t be that romantic if a gun was held to her head.”

Ruby shrugged. “Maybe your dad sent it? Like he knew you were having issues and wanted to make you feel better?”

“My dad always gets me chocolates for Valentine's Day not flowers. Plus he doesn’t like Melody anymore than my mom or step mom does, why would he try to pass these words off as hers?”

Another shrug as she grabbed the tray full of drinks that should have been delivered quite a while ago. “You could always call up the shop and ask for the receipt?”

Deciding to do just that, Robyn googled the name of the shop that was on the back of the card and called them up, getting a busy signal the first two times and finally on the third try a ragged out of breath woman with almost a cockney British accent answered with what sounded like a hundred rushed shouting voices in the background.

“Game of Thorns flower shop, how may I help you?”

“Hi, yes, I was wondering if you could tell me the name of a person who sent me flowers.”

“You’re going to have to come down to the shop and show us some ID,” the woman answered in such a hurry that Robyn barely caught her words.

“Are you serious?” she scoffed. “I need to show you ID to get you to tell me who sent me flowers? What if it was some stalker?”

“How do I know YOU aren’t the stalker?” the woman on the phone challenged. “Or a jilted lover or simply a prat trying to find dirt on a coworker?”

“..Fair point.”

“Yeah I tend to make quite a few of those.”

Robyn chuckled as she grabbed a napkin and a pen. “Well can you give me your address so I can stop down there then?”

“Game of Thorns Flower Shop, 815 East 53 Seattle Washington 60612.”

“Great, that’s only like on the next block from where I work, I can be over there in ten minutes. But I’m assuming there’s gonna be a bit of a wait. Although I’m not sure why, what with this probably being the slowest day of the year for you and all.”

The woman laughed and Robyn smiled so brightly she swore the woman heard her.

Robyn missed people laughing at her jokes.

After promising to take care of her when she got there both Robyn and the woman hung up. Then after telling Remy to watch the bar for a bit she grabbed her coat and the card before heading off to find her mystery poet…

 

Please Review! 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The grand finale! A month after Valentines Day lol. I hope y’all like it and feel it was worth it and then go check out my other CA fics lol. But for real I hope you guys like it.

Robyn walked in the flower ship and was immediately assaulted with the sound of a hundred voices and an overwhelming floral scent.

She got in the last position of a very long line, nearly all of them Men, either complaining about an order or choose to wait until at the last minute to put in their Valentine’s Day order. 

From the back of the store Robyn saw not one but two people working the front counter, one an older larger man who was typing as fast as he could on a computer while he held the phone between the crock of his ear and his shoulder. The other worker was a woman, only a year or so older than Robyn, with curly blonde hair and pale blue eyes.

_ She was beautiful _ , the bartender thought. 

Stunning in every way. 

She had on a black ‘Game of Thorns’ T-shirt with a blue flannel overtop and a brown corduroy skirt to go with it and even looking quite overworked and rather haggard, she was still gorgeous to Robyn.

Robyn had always been a fan of blondes truthfully. Melody was a one off, before that she had gone solely with blonde women; blonde women just like the girl working the counter at the flower shop.

Playing on her phone she waited ten, fifteen, almost twenty minutes to get to the front of the line and there was a line almost out the door by the time she got to the counter. 

The older man seemed to be taking care of all the phone orders so she had to go to the blonde whose plain black name tag pinned to her flannel read ‘Alice’.

_ That’s a pretty name _ , Robyn thought as she approached the blonde worker 

“How can I help you?” Alice asked breathlessly, hardly glancing up from her busy fast moving computer screen to look at Robyn.

“Yeah I called a while ago about getting the name of someone who sent me flowers?”

When she heard the voice Alice looked up from her screen and her icy blue eyes went wide at the sight of the bartender in front of her.

“Oh… I’m, you- uh… yeah. Yeah, sure I- I can tell you,” Alice stammered out, her face turning a violent crimson.

“Hey you okay?” Robyn asked softly when she heard the stuttering reply.

“No I’m- I’m, yeah, you just…” Alice took a deep breath as she busied her hands and bought a few moments shuffling a few loose papers. “We have a mutual Facebook friend,” she finally said in order to hide her embarrassment as well as the fact she had stalked her profile page in order to write her a romantic poem and that was where she knew her from. “Henry Mills? I’ve seen you post on his page a few times.”

Robyn studied Alice a few moments before she broke out into a grin. “Alice! Alice Jones! You were the one who went seriously hard at that MAGA idiot who asked Henry if Ella was legal that one time! I think you might have made him cry.”

Alice chuckled and nodded, the blush in her face fading. “Well if you don’t wanna be told mean things that make you cry, don’t be a complete arse.”

Robyn nodded, gently chewing on her bottom lip. “I completely agree.”

Alice’s grin shifted to something a bit more flirty as she cleared her throat and turned back to her computer. “So that’s Robyn Locksley then?”

“Yeah. Spelled with a Y, not an I.”

“So Yobin?”

Robyn raised her brow at the worker but the snicker and glint in her eye told her Alice was just messing around.

“Yeah that’s exactly how it’s pronounced,” Robyn said with a laugh that brought another smile to Alice's face.

She really did miss making people smile. Melody didn’t exactly have a sense of humor, certainly not one that matches Robyn’s rather dorky humor and would rather just roll her eyes and be embarrassed of her girlfriends jokes. 

Alice typed a bit more and turned the screen towards Robyn so she could see the order.

“Melody Seawater ordered the flowers,” Alice announced. Robyn could hear an odd shadow in her voice, like that name tasted bitter on her tongue.

Robyn furrowed her brow at the news, shaking her head. “No, there has to be a mistake. She couldn’t have sent me these flowers.”

“There’s no other orders to a Robyn Locksley,” she informed her with a few more clicks of her mouse. “There’s an order FROM a Robin Locksley spelled with an I rather than a Y to someone named Regina. Maybe the delivery man screwed up?”

Another shake of her head. “No my dad wouldn’t give his wife just carnations. Wait...” Robyn leaned in closer to study the screen closer before she caught what she was looking for. “I see the problem. You gave me the wrong card.”

Alice glanced at the screen and saw that in the ‘card’ box was the original half assed message from Melody.

“I knew that couldn’t be real,” Robyn said with a bitter laugh. “I knew that poem was too good to be true. Well whoever wrote their girlfriend that poem was a lucky girl, too bad I got it instead.”

Alice swallowed hard. “You don’t think that your girlfriend wrote that?”

“Please,” Robyn scoffed. “Melody couldn’t write something that romantic if you held a gun to her head.”

“...Ah. Yeah that… that would make sense. I didn’t really think about that,” Alice muttered, wringing her hands together nervously.

Robyn examined her for a long moment. “Didn’t really think about what?”

“Alice!”

Both girls flinched as the older man turned from his position in front of the phone towards his young employee.

His name-tag read ‘Moe’ and he spoke in just a heavy British accent as Alice did and he was fuming. He jabbed a finger at the phone that not even a half second after he hung up was ringing again.

“Why did I just get a call from Leroy Grumps asking if he was going to be charged more because rather than the one line note he wrote on the card his fiancée got a full nine line poem?” he demanded his employee.

A hot red blush overtook creeped up from her neck and surrounded Alice's face. “I- I don’t-.”

“You’ve been changing the bloody cards around again haven’t you?”

Robyn’s jaw dropped to the counter and Alice's already scarlet blush turned even darker as she stammered out some words that for the life of her the curly haired blonde couldn’t unjumble.

“I TOLD you that costs us money! I TOLD you not to do that anymore!”

“You wrote the poem?” asked Robyn, in awe and shock of the woman standing before her. The words that sent butterflies scrambling crazily in her stomach, that were burned brilliantly into her memory, that seemed to have been written by someone who knew Robyn inside and out that she KNEW Melody could never write, had been written by this stranger for all intents and purposes…

Alice just look towards her for a moment, her eyes screaming the truth; that she was indeed Robyn’s poet.

Moe whipped towards Robyn and jabbed a finger at the now trembling blonde. “She changed your card around too?”

“Well-... I, I don’t-.”

But Moe wasn’t waiting for an excuse and just turned back to Alice. “After today you’re on unpaid suspension for three days!”

“Mr. French, please,” Alice pleaded, tears heavy in her voice. “I- I didn’t-.”

“And the only reason you aren’t fired!” he interpreted sharply, “Is my bloody son in law is one of the most crooked cops in all of Seattle and would probably shut my business down if I put you out on your arse!” 

Robyn saw the tears spill over Alice's blue eyes and hardened her stunned gaze and turned her attention towards Moe.

“Back off, Jerkwad!”

Moe whipped towards the bartender again. “Excuse me?”

“I said leave her alone,” Robyn snapped. “First off you yelling at your employee in front of customers is making me wanna tell EVERYONE I know to never use your shop again. Second; who cares? Yeah she may have changed a few cards but so what? I read the most romantic poem I’ve ever read in my life and the fact Alice was willing to go the extra mile just to make me feel special? You should be giving her a goddam promotion for making your customers targets feel good rather than suspending her!”

Over Moe’s shoulder Alice smiled at the archer, her pale blue eyes shining in gratitude. Moe crossed his arms over his chest and pointed at the front door.

“How about you don’t tell me how do deal with my employees and you get outta my shop?”

Robyn glared at the man before she looked over at the smiling blonde. “Thank you for the poem, Alice.” She looked back at Moe to say her final words on the matter. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read.”

With that, Robyn turned and stormed out of the shop with Alice staring longingly after her.

She got back to the bar,her anger melted into disappointment that she had been right. She told Ruby what happened, that Melody has sent her a basic lukewarm message to go along with the basic flowers, just like she suspected and that it was the flower shop owner of all people who gave her the poem.

When Ruby asked her if Alice was hot or worth investing in Robyn just rolled her eyes and went back to pouring drinks for the growing crowd.

_ But _ , Ruby realized with a smirk as she took the drinks to the patrons,  _ Robyn never said no… _

The night passed by as slow as it did every busy night. Couples snuggling together, strangers buying each others drinks in hopes for an exchange of numbers or something more, girls either accepting the flattery or rejecting it… But Robyn barely had time to breathe much less bask in the love this day offered seeing as how she had two jobs that might; make drinks and also be on the lookout for lonely men who didn’t get the hint in which case she would be the first defense and give him a ‘friendly’ warning to calm down and if that didn’t work she would have to signal their bouncer Ralph over to kick the offender out.

But compared to most big crowded nights this was a fairly quiet night; only having to kick out three people the whole night which was good considering Robyn’s mind was as far away from ‘The Rabbit Hole’ as humanly possible and instead was firmly planted on the curly haired poet she met earlier in the day.

Alice was so beautiful. Beautiful and funny and as amazing with words as Robyn was with her bow. Robyn knew she had to have glanced at her Facebook to understand her but Robyn didn’t care, the fact Alice was able to know her and get her that well just from glancing at a screen for a few minutes and was able to send her heart fluttering while Melody, her girlfriend, barely seemed to know her after four months of dating.

Hell Robyn was almost positive that Melody didn’t even love her enough to stay faithful much less know her that well to write something as moving as Alice wrote for her…

The night waned down and their customers either went home with each other or alone and finally 1:30 AM rolled around and Robyn sighed in relief as she rang the bell above the bar, calling out ‘last call’ to the few remaining customers.

Just as Robyn began doing a final cleanup of the bar she heard the door open and she groaned loudly without turning to the new arrival who took a seat at the bar. “Last call was ten minutes ago,” Robyn muttered without looking at the customer.

“I figured,” Alice told her, making the bartender whip around. “I assumed when Melody sent the flowers to a bar that’s where you worked.”

“Hey, you,” Robyn said with a grin. “I know I said last call was over but I can make an exception for you. You want a drink?”

“I’ll take a Malibu Rum on the rocks if that’s okay?”

“For my favorite poet; of course.”

Alice chuckled as she watched Robyn pour the drink and handed it over to the blonde who lifted it in cheers.

“So did your boss give you a hard time after I left?” Robyn asked as she continued cleaning up. 

“Nah he was too busy. I am suspend for the next three days though,” Alice said with a shrug as she took a sip of her drink. 

The bartender winced, knowing just how little Alice must be getting paid and to lose three days pay? 

“I’m sorry,” Robyn told her with a genuine apologeticness.

Another shrug. “Three days off isn’t exactly a big punishment for making people happy.”

Robyn grinned at her, a shadow of flirtation on her lips. “I suppose not.” 

Alice chewed her bottom lip before she took a slow sip of her drink while the other patron staggered out to the taxi Robyn called him leaving Robyn and Alice the last two people in the bar.

“I did make you happy right? I mean I know you were disappointed it wasn’t Melody-.”

“Nah I wasn’t disappointed.” Robyn came around the bar and began setting the now empty stools up on the bar with Alice leaving her own spot to help. “I was more confused than anything.”

“Confused? Why?”

“Like I said, Melody couldn’t write something that romantic if her life depended on it. Truth be told…” Robyn and Alice made their way to the tables that Ruby had already cleared off for them and began setting the chairs up. “I think she’s cheating on me.”

Alice pursed her lips as she put another chair on top of the table, avoiding the emerald green eyes of the girl in front of her.

“What makes you think that?”

“A lot of things,” Robyn admitted. “I mean it might just be me being paranoid and she’s just hanging out with her friend but still… Melody isn’t exactly the most romantic woman I’ve dated.”

“And you like romance,” Alice asked, more of a statement than a question, being confirmed with a nod.

“I mean I don’t want them to steal the Mona Lisa for me but… I don’t know, like I told her my favorite flowers are daisies, she gets me cheap ass carnations. I mean the cost isn’t important, like Twixes are my favorite candy. Melody could have just gotten me a Twix bar and I would have been happy. Just something to prove she knows me and listens to me.” Robyn looked down at the ground and bit back her tears. “I’m just sick of being with someone who doesn’t know me.”

Robyn was pleasantly surprised when Alice abandoned the spot besides her flipped chair and walked over to the tall woman and wrapped her arms around her. When Robyn hugged her back she swore she felt the stress and anxiety and all the anger in her life just melt away when Alice put her arms around her.

“You’ll find someone worthy of you, Robyn,” Alice promised her. “You will, I know it.  And hey…” Alice pulled away so she could look at her with what was meant to be a comforting smile but instead came across as more of a grimace. But Alice was not about to encourage this woman to leave her girlfriend for the purely selfish reason of wanting to be with her.  Although Alice did think Robyn deserved far better than what Melody was offering.

“You don’t know Melody is cheating on you, she and Alex could just be friends.”

Robyn opened her mouth to tell her that maybe Alice was right, maybe it was just her own imagination when something hit her.  After a moment to bite back a laugh she gave Alice a smile to let her know it was alright. “I never told you Alex’s name…

Alice’s eyes went wide with shock and Robyn had to bite back a laugh. “I… I mean I, it-.”

“Was the note or flowers better than what she gave me?” Robyn asked with a, surprising, humor in her voice. 

Alice just shook her head. “Same carnations, same note just with a mention to not read it in front of you… I’m so sorry, Robyn.”

It was Robyn’s turn to shrug.  “It’s fine. I’m fine, like I said I kinda figured she was and as you could tell me and her have an excellent relationship… I’m actually relieved in a way, now I have an excuse to break up with her.”

Alice chuckled as Robyn set the last chair on top of the table and then stood there, not quite sure what to do next. She hasn’t made any concrete plans after work, thinking that she would text Melody after she got off work to see if she wanted to meet up but that plan was no longer an option so she should have just gone home, eat the chocolates her father got her and call it a night.

But… she didn’t want to go home. Not just yet anyway. She was a little tired after being on her feet all day but, she realized as she went and grabbed her coat from the back room, she didn’t wanna leave Alice. She wanted to be with this person, not just in a sexual way (although the tightness of her skirt and leggings definitely made her wanna do that as well). But she wanted to get to know her, know her likes, her dislikes, how a wonderful poet such as her wound up working in a flower shop where apparently she couldn’t get fired because of a rather corrupt cop.

Robyn held the door of the bar open for Alice and locked it behind them and shoved her hands in her pocket, a blush creeping up her neck. “Hey so… I know it’s late but I mean I don’t know if you’re hungry but there’s a amazing burger place open until three if you want a late night dinner. They even got great veggie burgers,” Robyn added, remembering seeing her comment once in Henry’s page that she was a vegetarian.

Alice smiled at her, a different smile than what she had given her the rest of the night. It was a smile a single woman gave another single woman that she hoped wouldn’t be single by the end of the night.

“Sure. But I gotta stop at a gas station real quick first.”

Robyn grinned and nodded, offering her arm to the curly haired blonde. She laughed as Alice’s face turned a brilliant scarlet as she took Robyn’s arm and the two began walking down the streets of Seattle with Alice doing most of the asking and Robyn doing most of the talking and, she realized, Alice seemed to hang on every word. Like she was truly invested in knowing everyone about the bartender beside her.

Something Melody never did but Robyn knew Alice would do; always.

They stopped at a gas station right around the corner from the late night burger joint and Alice told Robyn to stay outside while she went in which she did.

Alice was right and not even two minutes later she was back outside with something in her hand, a giddy smile on her lips as she held out what she bought.

“Figured you deserved one decent Valentines Day gift,” Alice said as she handed the Twix to Robyn with a sweet smile.

Tears flooded Robyn’s eyes as she looked down at the ¢99 candy. “You… I mean I- I mentioned this in passing. You remembered?”

Alice looked at her like she was absolutely insane, like she couldn’t believe Robyn would think someone wouldn’t listen to her… “Of course I did. Everything you say is worth remembering.”

Robyn blinked the sudden tears away as she took Alice’s face in hers and, without a second of hesitation, pressed her lips against hers. 

Alice let out a rather adorable squeal of surprise but didn’t even pause to collect her thoughts as she kissed her back, draping her arms around Robyn’s neck while the bartenders hands found her hips and pulled her closer while they deepened the kiss.

When they both needed air they pulled away but wouldn’t let themselves take their hands off the other.

“If a Twix bar gets me a kiss I wonder what buying you a burger would get me,” Alice muttered, earning a laugh from Robyn who kissed her again, this time ending it far sooner.

“What do you say we go get that burger and find out?” Robyn asked, her voice slick with honey. Alice grinned and then, taking Robyn’s arm again, the two of them headed off into the night…

 

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> Francis J. Grasso wrote “The Lovers” & Erin Henson wrote “Arrow”


End file.
